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Hi Blog. As Debito.org’s second post on the upcoming July 31, 2016, Tokyo Governorship race (reasons why you should care about it are here), I just wanted to cover the candidacy of the anti-foreign vote, particularly Sakurai Makoto, “former leader” of the officially-certified xenophobic hate group Zaitokukai. Here’s his campaign poster:
(All images courtesy of MS)
While this bullying berk hasn’t a snowball’s chance of winning, thank goodness, it’s still a bellwether of Japan’s general tolerance of hate speech that a person like this would be taken seriously enough to allow a candidate who espouses hatred of whole peoples (and believe me he’s not alone, pre-hate speech law).
So let’s take a look at his party platform, since that’s what we do here (click on image to expand in browser):
Okay, deep breath. I’m only going to translate the headlines. He’s running as an “unaffiliated” (mushozoku) candidate, and his headline is putting “Japan first” and “returning Tokyo politics to Japanese nationals” (kokumin) (a riff on one of PM Abe’s previous election slogans).
Here are the seven points of his platform:
- Abolishing “social welfare” (seikatsu hogo) for foreigners (even though they’re also paying for it, and it’s not as though they’re really taking advantage of the system).
- Reducing the number of illegal foreign overstayers by half (even though according to the MOJ itself the number has almost always been falling since 1993).
- Passing a law against hate speech against Japan/Japanese (because of course those bullying foreign minorities shouldn’t be allowed to victimize that poor disempowered Japanese majority!)
- Increase taxes on facilities run by domestic minority Korean groups Souren and Mindan (because nothing spells equalized justice against minorities than targeted tax increases against them).
- “Regulate” illegal gambling at [Korean] pachinko parlors (because after all, gambling is a naughty activity in Japan, except when it’s gambling on horse racing sanctioned by the JRA, or motor boating, or bicycling, or Japanese-run pachinko parlors etc.; you’d assume that if it was in fact “illegal”, it would already be “regulated”… Oh wait, this is suddenly “illegal” because it’s connected to Koreans, right?).
- Suspending the building of Korean schools (because of course they’re proliferating like wildflowers across Japan).
- Putting forth a more compact Tokyo 2020 Olympics (thrown in as an afterthought, because we’re not fixating on foreigners, right?).
You can read the fine print of his platform for yourself, but it all spells the need for some to launder their hatred through Japan’s electoral process. Let’s see how many votes this bully ultimately gets come August 1 (the last bully candidate we tracked here, Tamogami Toshio, finished dead last in his division). Dr. ARUDOU, Debito
==============
UPDATE JULY 31, 2016
According to today’s election results (Asahi.com in Japanese), turncoat opportunist (and hobnobber with xenophobes) Koike Yuriko won the Tokyo Governorship easily, receiving more than a million votes over the officially-sponsored LDP candidate, who came second. The anti-Abe candidate came in a distant third with less than half the votes of Koike.
Sakurai came an even more distant fifth, garnering only 114,171 votes, or 2.08% of all votes cast. He ranked no better than single digits in any electoral district of Tokyo-to (and in two districts less than 1%), which is good news. Even better news is that he fared much worse than extreme rightist militarist Tamogami Toshio, who got 610,865 votes in the previous 2014 Tokyo Gubernatorial Election, or 12.39% of all votes cast.
So keep wasting your group’s funds on these elections, Sakurai. It’s probably better than investing them in your hate rallies.
========================
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28 comments on “Zaitokukai xenophobic hate group’s Sakurai Makoto runs for Tokyo Governorship; his electoral platform analyzed here (UPDATED: he lost badly)”
I fear this “a law against hate speech against Japan/Japanese”- as it basically is the old “if you dont like Japan, why dont you go home” mindset.
“Do you like Japanese food?”
You: Not so much. Some of it.
..would be borderline “Anti Japan hate speech” for Sakurai and I fear, a sizeable amount of the former Ishihara electorate.
If this racist asshole gets elected, somehow I suspect I’m going to be harassed even MORE by the police and troubled in Tokyo. How much chance does this scumbag even have of getting elected?
— I believe practically zero.
It’s not the flaming racists who are dangerous. It’s the ones with a veneer of normality…
Dr. Debito, I noticed that you ommited ⑥ of Sakurai’s platform.
Number six is to control illegal gambling at pachinko, but we all know the real reason – that there is a perception that pachinko parlours are run by Korean families (and not controlled or at least regulated by the Yakuza and other right-wing underworld elements as common sense would dictate)
Point number 3 on “hate speech” would probably entail claiming that the comfort women, Nanking etc. were all real historical events.
— Sorry for the omission. Added. Thanks!
@ Andrew in Saitama #4
Yes, the misconceptions about the pachinko business are plenty.
For example, I never realized until I read in the Japan Times three years ago, that the shops next door to pachinko joints where the customers go to change their ‘prizes’ back into cash, are actually run by the National Police Agency, and staffed by retired police officers- it’s a kind of J-police amakudari.
This makes a profit for the NPA, and is one of the reasons why the NPA has been resisting the opening of casino resorts in Japan under the guise of protecting Japan from the associated crime wave.
It’s all about vested interests only.
— Link to the article please.
It is not only shocking but also quite frightening the fact that this man and his racist filled agenda have been allowed to run for Governor of Tokyo, which is ironically where most of the foreign travelers come to. Also the fact that no one bats an eye and calls him out publicly says a lot about the twisted idea of “free speech”. Yeah don’t hold your breath waiting for Hashimoto to save the day -or his ratings.
I couldn’t help but chuckle about his proposition to add a hate speech law against Japan/Japanese.
@ Dr. Debito #5
Here is Phillip Brasor’s article from his ‘Yen for Living’ website. The article was originally reproduced in the Japan Times, but they don’t seem to be archiving it any more.
http://blog.japantimes.co.jp/yen-for-living/casino-tax-study-exposes-pachinko-to-greater-scrutiny/
Well, Sakurai is organized.
I was back in Machida today and saw that only six candidates have a poster up.
Koike, Torigoe, Masuda, Sakurai, Uesugi and the fellow who was a mayor in Hyogo, Nakagawa(?).
That was it. 19 other candidates don’t even have one.
Machida is a suburb in western Tokyo with a population of 800,000.
Abit off topic because No idea how to contact you but read this:
http://en.rocketnews24.com/2016/07/28/getting-stopped-by-the-police-in-japan-how-often-does-it-happen-and-why/
Click bait article
meanwhile, elsewhere the racial epithet “jap” is being considered as a hate crime
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/priscilla-ouchida/peter-king-jap-hate-speech_b_9995156.html
@ Tim2 #10
But isn’t ‘Jap’ or ‘Japs’ just short for ‘Japanese’? In the same way that Japanese people and apologists are always telling me that ‘gaijin’ is just short for ‘gaikokujin sama’, and that the abbreviation is not derogatory in meaning?
I don’t understand! I’m confused! Someone is lying to me!
@ Tim & Jim 🙂
I shut down the reality-deniers’ claim of “it’s just an abbreviation” with the fact that Japan’s first actual use of the term Gaijin was to derogatorily describe JAPANESE people who were born outside of the speakers’ town.
仲間以外の人。 疎遠の人。 敵視すべきな人。
1998 Kōjien Dictionary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kōjien
そのことに関係のない人。 第三者。
1989 Daijirin Dictionary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daijirin
仲間以外の人。 他人。
1998 Daijisan Dictionary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daijisen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin#Etymology_and_history
Meaning, for example, Japanese people born in Nara would use the derogatory term Gaijin to describe Japanese people born in Kyōto passing through Nara, and vice versa.
Thus the term Gaijin has a long history in Japan of derogatorily labeling a person as an outside-person and thus enemy, LONG before the relatively recent country-outside-person Gaikokujin term was invented.
I then ask the reality-denier where they were born, and if the answer is not in the particular chō we are standing in, I start calling them a Gaijin, and ask them WHY are they currently choosing to be outside of the chō where they were born, and I end by asking how does it feel to be labelled an outsider, a 仲間以外の人, a person not in the inside circle, here in this chō.
Of course, for folks raised in a culture which does not value the importance of empathizing with the feelings of others, this “How does it feel” question doesn’t move most listeners to the appropriate level of satori which it should, but: at least the listener realizes that THIS particular resident of Japan is NOT fooled by the “Gaijin has no derogatory meaning, Gaijin has always been just an abbreviation of Gaikokujin” reality-denying lie.
— I went back even further in one of my JT columns (“The Case for Gaijin as a Racist Word, August 5, 2008), and found evidence to support your case that it’s not just a simple abbreviation, echoing your arguments.
Oh the J irony “Of course, for folks raised in a culture which does not value the importance of empathizing with the feelings of others, this “How does it feel” question doesn’t move most listeners to the appropriate level of satori which it should”
And yet the cliche of “Omotenashi” and the exported Nihonjiron PR we were sold, is that Japanese DO empathize with others, hence the need for e.g. unanimous decisions (actually an excuse to change nothing and procrastinate), hence the “indirect expression “which any Japanese can get” (though it more often than not just leads to “eh?”)
Hence Tatemae and honne- though one J friend of mine challenged this in the 90s as “Just causing misunderstanding”.
I wonder if that was just a progressive blip in the long term reversal to pseudo trad values, like e.g. a non western constitution, whaling, and tempura.
As for Satori, in two decades I never found a single Japanese who could explain this. Ditto Wabi and Sabi.
So much for those trad values! Unless of course trad values means “Japanese only” golf courses, hostess clubs, Sumo, soccer teams like Urawa Reds playing the Japanese Game etc
Sakurai has a truck and he was speaking in Tokyo.
He got TV time on Asahi, I guess since they want to be fair to lesser known candidates.
Besides Koike, Torigoe and Masuda, I don’t think the other candidates have one.
@Jim,
100%. Cake and eat it too mentality.
Please dont call me j#% but I can call you gaijin, because after all its not a racially offensive afterall, and most of the world doesnt know/care what it means. I can then deny you housing and employment because your a gaijin (remember, “gaijin” is just an innnocent term to describe people who are not Japanese) and keep most gaijin products and companies from entering Japan because they are NOT Japanese. I just love how these articles always give the one sided victim approach when it comes to Japan.
Election Breaking News:
A former LDP lawmaker Yuriko Koike won the election for governorship of Tokyo by landslide victory.
Japanese news media already reported her victory hours before vote counting officially began.
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20160731-00000047-mai-pol
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/07/31/national/politics-diplomacy/tokyo-elects-former-environment-minister-yuriko-koike-as-citys-first-female-governor/
“Jap” is only offensive because americans, in a fit of PC correctness, told everyone so. But really there is no negative connotations to what is just a shortened word.
“Gaijin” is a strange word. Some people claim it just means “foreigner” but that isn’t so because when Japanese are abroad and they are the foreigners they still call us gaijin. “Gaijin” does not mean foreigner it means “not-jap”.
— Make no mistake: “Jap” is a racial epithet with strong roots in wartime alienation, dehumanization, and enemy making. Its use is not welcome here.
Sorry, I was just railing against the arrogant selfish racism of Japanese who would say that my claim that ‘gaijin’ is not appropriate is a form of racist cultural imperialism on my part, whilst I, at the same time, support the effort to protect them from terms that they find racially offensive within my society.
And it makes me think, why bother?
@TJJ,
I never believed “gaijin” is being used just as an innocent term to describe foreigners. Racism and xenophobia are so ingrained into Japanese society that they need a derogatory term to describe outsiders and gaijin is used almost exclusively for these occasions. Just as “j#%” makes some Japanese feel uncomfortable, so does “gaijin” when describing foreigners, and Ive seen many Japanese use it just because of this; they enjoy watching your discomfort when you say it. If I were in another country like the U.S. and I said “there are j#%s working in this office”, there would, understandably, but uproar and outrage. In Japan, not only is it rare to find “gaijin” working in an office with Japanese due to exclusionary and discrimination policies, if you do happen to overcome that, youll often find the word “gaijin” is used to ostracize, ridicule, blame, and insult, without any recourse whatsoever to ever address this issue, except that “gaijin” is just used as a word to describe people who arent Japanese, or some other mickey mouse excuse. In these situations, some gaijin may find themselves using racial epithets they would normally never use, just to stay connected to their dignity, much like some black people use cracker to describe whites.
— I don’t want this to devolve into another one of those tedious linguistic discussions, so let’s bring it back to the topic of this blog entry.
Also, @anonymous,
excellent post )
If I may summarize my thought on this, and it does run parrallel to this topic of bullying and racism by this loser candidate;
As anonymous posted and Dr. Debito posted at JT about Japans lack of empathy, you can get into real sticky territory when it comes to political correctness, decency, humanity accountability in Japan. If its going to be a one sided game without empathy, and your story is never “heard out” then how can any rule or behavior ever be expected? This law or rule being suggested is happening in the U.S., but what happens in the U.S. often gains traction in Japan, but on Japans terms of course.
UPDATE JULY 31, 2016
According to today’s election results (Asahi.com in Japanese), turncoat opportunist (and hobnobber with xenophobes) Koike Yuriko won the Tokyo Governorship easily, receiving more than a million votes over the officially-sponsored LDP candidate, who came second. The anti-Abe candidate came in a distant third with less than half the votes of Koike.
Sakurai came an even more distant fifth, garnering only 114,171 votes, or 2.08% of all votes cast. He ranked no better than single digits in any electoral district of Tokyo-to (and in two districts less than 1%), which is good news. Even better news is that he fared much worse than extreme rightist militarist Tamogami Toshio, who got 610,865 votes in the previous 2014 Tokyo Gubernatorial Election, or 12.39% of all votes cast.
So keep wasting your group’s funds on these elections, Sakurai. It’s probably better than investing them in your hate rallies.
The strange thing is that Koike kind of ran as the candidate of change even though she is in Nippon Kaigi and visits Yasukuni.
But she won every age group.
She really was the stealth candidate, and I think voters think having a woman as governor is a change (which it is), but how much will things really change?
I have to wonder how much the LDP opposition was kind of faux LDP outrage. After all, the best Abe could manage during the entire campaign to support the guy officially backed by the LDP was a recorded 3 min speech.
Not much heavyweight LDP support was it?
I suspect that the who thing was engineered to make Koike seem like she was going against the old boys club, when in fact she is very much one of the right-wing revisionist old boys herself! A clever LDP double-bluff that looks fresh and new, and challenging, but in fact ensures a continuation of Nippon Kaigi’s agenda.
The Tokyo electorate are mugs to have fallen for it.
Wasting funds is one thing, but even his election rallies seemed a bit like hate rants.
Only one day after she is elected, and Koike wants to block the opening of a school for zainichi Korean-Japanese.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/01/national/plan-for-new-korean-school-in-tokyo-threatened-by-koike-election/
Didn’t take long for her pretense to drop and show her nasty Nippon Kaigi face, did it?
Hey, if people like Koike and her right-wing buddies hadn’t spent the last 70 years discriminating against Japanese who have ethnic Koreans in their family trees, maybe they wouldn’t feel the need to open private schools to insulate their kids from the racism in the ‘we Japanese are one people’ state schools.
@Debito (re: your note appended to my comment #12) Yes, it was indeed your fine 2008 article which taught me the original use of the derogatory outsider term Gaijin!
I had forgotten where I had learned that, and now re-reading your article it is obvious: it was you who taught me (and all of us) that interesting fact 8 years ago, thank you Debito! (http://www.debito.org/?p=1858)
As you correctly shared with us in your article there, “Calling gaijin a mere contraction of gaikokujin is not historically accurate. According to ancient texts and prewar dictionaries [see Endnote], “gaijin” (or “guwaijin” in the contemporary rendering) once referred to Japanese people too. Anyone not from your village, in-group etc. was one. It was a way of showing you don’t belong here – even (according to my 1978 Kojien, Japan’s premier dictionary) “regarded as an enemy” (tekishi).”
Yep, this is an important reminder that basically ALL of the interesting and useful (and life-improving, and even vital-for-survival) well-referenced facts about Japan which I carry and share (for example: the Police Law, Article 2, which requires Probable Cause of a specific Crime [Tsumi] BEFORE any Police Questioning [Shokumu Shitsumon] can ever be legally initiated) I learned right here at Debito.org
Meaning, some of my comments over the years have reminded folks to become more knowledgeable (and thus more powerful) about the Police Law: which gives all individuals in Japan the right to confidently continue walking free in Japan, with no more fear of being fooled into agreeing to stand there answering ANY police questions, since “Shokumu Shitsumon lacking initial Probable Cause of a Crime” is illegal, and since “even the rare Shokumu Shitsumon WITH initial Probable Cause of a Crime” is still totally voluntary, and thus as long as there are not handcuffs on you: you are FREE to slowly walk away from the attempted interrogation, meaning you can absolutely REFUSE to answer ANY questions and can REFUSE to give ANY of your valuable time to the wannabe interrogators, by peacefully stating “I refuse (Okotowari Shimasu), I have the right to continue walking (Aruki Tsuzukeru Kenri Arimasu), I want to walk now (Ima Arukitai), Can I walk now (Mou Aruite ii)?” and repeating that until they grumble “hai.”
The point is, about this vital life-saving Japan human rights protection law information which I repeat and re-present again and again: I originally learned ALL of it here at Debito.org so all gratitude goes to Debito.
Real talk is about to become real action: I hereby promise, on August 25th 2016, I’m going to do what I should have already done a long time ago, send a small monetary token of gratitude to Debito’s hosting cost link (https://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=17701) and buy one of the 5 books (http://www.debito.org/handbook.html or http://www.debito.org/japaneseonly.html#english or http://www.debito.org/japaneseonly.html#japanese or http://www.debito.org/japaneseonly.html#2013update or http://www.debito.org/inappropriate.html) plus even buy the T-shirt as an important conversation starter (http://www.debito.org/tshirts.html)
Yes, I’m putting my money where my mouth is folks, and take note: this is a very rare action for a “download all books/movies/shows/music for free, never send the artists any donations” financially poor (and thus usually quite stingy) person like myself.
Look and listen, dear fellow readers, Debito is doing the thing which ALL of us humans need to begin doing: altruistically giving to humanity a service FOR FREE upfront, information which all of us readers have enjoyed and benefited from already, so OF COURSE the fair (rational, logical, loving) thing for each reader to do is return the favor by kindly placing a tip into the honor-system tip-box.
For this honorable, synergistic, cooperative, reality of a human providing a service for free: thousands of articles containing valuable information about Japan plus a forum to discuss the articles further to be fair we community members must actually manifest the righteousness to place a bill of gratitude into the hat of the person who gave us what we enjoyed.
Merely typing “Thanks for everything, I appreciate your altruism” is nice and easy to say, but mere words aren’t enough to physically compensate for the hundreds of thousands of hours of energy it took to produce those thousands of articles which we all have enjoyed reading and which we retain and use in our daily lives.
Imagine going to a rare trusting “open price, you choose what you pay” restaurant and enjoying the food prepared by a cook who gives his energy producing delicious meals as a service, a labor of love, and then simply walking out without leaving even a cent!
Imagine stopping for 40 minutes and enjoying a street performance, really enjoying it, even learning some effective sentences to use in future situations, yet simply walking away without leaving even one yen, and doing that repeatedly, every month, for years!
Such a selfish action of benefiting from the labor of love yet never giving back even the smallest monetary token of gratitude: is what I (and probably most of us readers) have repeatedly done to our favorite Japan Human Rights Information Researcher and Activist Arudou Debito for decades.
So, let’s solve the problem and feel better now: I hereby formally announce that I am going to forgo a small fraction of my salary on August 25th 2016 (ichi man yen) and I request all fellow humans who have enjoyed reading Debito’s articles over the years to join me in doing what we should have done long ago (without having to be begged to do it, without having to be prodded to do it) let’s properly place some donations into Debito’s hat.
This comment ended up evolving into a PBS-style “please make a contribution pledge now” plea, but the bottom line is positive: if each individual reading this is righteous enough to do the right thing this August 25th 2016, we all will feel much better knowing that we FINALLY gave back, a little monetary token of thanks, for the many many many hours we have enjoyed reading and learning here at Debito.org
TLDR Summary:
“I’ve enjoyed learning many facts about Japan over the years here, I owe Debito a nice special complementary lunch at the very least, and that’s totally an understatement, all of us readers owe Debito much more. I’m personally pledging to send on August 25th 2016 a small hosting donation plus buying a book and a buying a T-shirt (http://www.debito.org/donations.html) the grand total (ichi man yen) is less than a fraction (1/25th) of one paycheck, and I hope this small action inspires each human reading this now to join me for real: Let’s EACH send a tip to say thank you for DECADES of service, Let’s send Debito a little physical love if you have ever enjoyed reading this beneficial site, and Let’s send it this August 25th since all we have is the present.” 🙂
— Thank you very much for the kind words. I might add that you might get more bang for your buck (or yen) by buying “Embedded Racism: Japan’s Visible Minorities and Racial Discrimination“, which assembles all the research done on Debito.org into a coherent whole. Drop by here to read an excerpt (click on “Look inside” above the book cover) and see if it’s to your liking.
So basically, most candidates are right wing xenophobes -“The anti-Abe candidate came in a distant third with less than half the votes of Koike.Sakurai came an even more distant fifth, …. he fared much worse than extreme rightist militarist Tamogami Toshio”. Abe has moved the goalposts- the way to beat the LDP candidate was to be as right wing or more so?
And the Tokyo public vote for them. I move that like supporting the Health Service in the UK, being a right wing/nationalist-and thus hobnobbing with such groups, is mandatory to be electable in so called “international city” Tokyo.
Saw a 70s comedy yesterday called “Mind Your Language”- the Japanese businessman student, though polite, refuses to sit with the Chinese student as he explains, “Japan is Righto Wingu, China is Lefto Wingu”.
40 years on, this monolithic description of Japanese voting behavior is no longer funny, and its truer than ever.